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Michael Goldman: Random thoughts as yet another Fourth of July comes and goes

By Michael Goldman

Updated:
07/07/2014 11:57:43 AM EDT

We all can agree Iraq is a mess, Afghanistan is a mess, Syria is a mess, Iran is a mess and Egypt is a mess. So here's the question: Are you ready today to send your son or daughter, your father, mother, uncle or brother, or even you yourself "over there" to try and fix it?

If the answer is no, than you're standing with President Barack Obama and a majority of your fellow U.S. citizens.

Ten years in harm's way is enough.

Just like Vietnam in 1973, what will be, will be.

So here's the question:

Has America ever produced a bigger group of liars, phonies and fakers than the "chicken hawks," led by former Vice President Dick Cheney, who first dragged us into America's two longest wars (Afghanistan and Iraq) and now pontificate on Fox News that someone else's family members should continue their unforgivable mistake for yet another decade or so?

As the late, great Joe Welsh said to Sen. Joe McCarthy in June of 1954: "...You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last sir, have you no sense of decency?"

Apparently not!

So here's the question:

Will history repeat itself or will the hate last decades more?

Fifty years ago, three innocent young men -- Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman -- were dragged from their car by a group of killers in Mississippi and murdered because of blind hate.

Last week, the bodies of three other innocent young men -- Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaar and Naftali Fraenkel -- apparently were dragged from their car in Israel by a group of killers, taken by force into Gaza and murdered because of blind hate.

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Many in America believe the Mississippi deaths had real meaning and they were the tipping point in the long and continuing efforts to make our nation a better place for all.

Here's hoping the deaths last week start the same efforts at reconciliation in the blood-soaked Middle East.

So here's the question:

Does anyone else find it the least bit ironic that when former President George W. Bush's attorney John Yoo made the case in writing that Bush's executive powers made him "America's king" for his entire term in office, the right-wing politicians and their lap-dog media sycophants remained deathly silent, yet when President Obama tried to exercise his historic rights to appoint interim leadership during the U.S. Senate recess period, he was accused of implementing an "imperial presidency"?

Come on, guys. Yoo argues Bush had the powers of a king! Now, that's the definition of an imperial presidency.

So here's the question:

Can we expect justice from the criminal justice system if we continue to pay assistant district attorneys and taxpayer-funded defense lawyers a pittance for their talents?

The answer is no.

So here's the question:

If, according to the current Supreme Court, "closely held" corporations are people too, with the same rights as individual citizens, how long before they ask for the right to not hire people different then themselves under the guise of freedom of association or to deny mental health care to workers claiming it infringes on their religious beliefs?

Soon, very soon, is the answer!

So here's the question:

Speaking of the Supreme Court, when are the right wingers going to plead "no mas" and acknowledge what anyone with eyes, ears and a brain knew a long time ago, which is that the five conservatives on this Supreme Court are the most activist and most radical in 80 years?

When it comes to guns, the court throws out 300 years of decisions by a dozen previous Supreme Courts and announces individual citizens are the same as militias.

As noted above, the court turns the Constitution on its head and rules corporations are people too.

To this group of self-proclaimed "originalists," money equals speech and spending unlimited money in political campaigns is a right not a privilege.

As the Washington based Alliance for Justice recently and accurately wrote, "the Roberts' Court takes cases it need not hear... and lacks respect for longstanding precedent."

Amen.

So here's the final question:

Will anyone continue to watch the international soccer championships now that the U.S. is out?

My guess is a resounding no!

Michael Goldman is a paid political consultant for Democratic candidates and president of Goldman Associates in Boston.

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